Saturday, December 13, 2008

Christmas Eve Gifts

Growing up we had a tradition on Christmas Eve of getting to open a present:) It stirred up much anticipation in our little hearts and gave us a taste of what the next day held for us. What a great way to build up the big day of celebrating Christ's birth!

This year, I am making two videos -- one with 40 of our favorite Ike pictures and one with 40 of our favorite Kate pictures:) At Cosco.com, they have photo center where you can make videos quite simply and they put your pictures to a song. It's $14.99 for the first video and $9.99 for any duplicate copies. They make a nice dvd case for it as well:)

Anyway, these are going to be our Christmas Eve gifts and if they enjoy them, I'm going to make these a Christmas Eve tradition. We are going to put the kids down for bed early, pop up some popcorn, call them back out of bed to open their presents! When they are older, I'll do a scavenger hunt so they can search for their gift;)

This morning Ike made his Christmas box. I'm going to date the bottom of it, and it's going to reappear every year with his Christmas Eve gift. I'm making one for Kate too.

8 comments:

Jamie said...

You have the neatest ideas!! What is a Christmas box?

Anonymous said...

I have been on Costco Photo center making things and didn't even notice this option. wow, thanks for the info, can't believe after all the time on there I missed that. Your kids are going to have such sweet memories!

Vicki Parramore said...

Jamie -- we just bought little cardboard boxes in the craft aisle at walmart and mod podged wrapping paper to it. I guess a Christmas box is whatever you make it:)

Megan -- have you been making photo books??? They turn out so well from Costco.com! What all have you been making???

The Brooks said...

It's great using your artistic creativity for your kids! We love the benefits of your "artwork."

Hs said...

I didn't know Costco did that either. NICE!!! I do love their photo books. I'm sure the DVDs are NICE!!! I love the Christmas box thing. Maybe we will do that while we are in WA next week. I will need some assistance :) I love your ideas!!!

Jamie said...

So what do you put in it??

Vicki Parramore said...

Ike's Christmas box (with a LOT of assistance from me) looks . . . well, who cares how it looks?:) It's sentimental and I think we'll laugh about it through the years:) Heidi, I'd be happy to help you make one, but once you see it, you might decide to buy one:) I highly recommend buying an old wooden box and we can paint the manger scene on it:) Jamie, we are going to put something sentimental in the boxes (their year in pictures put to a song on a dvd). You could, however, put a special ornament in them each year and when they are grown, they could have a start to their own ornament collection. I've heard of doing a different theme for each child (i.e. angels, snowmen, reindeer, snowflakes, ballerinas). Hmmm. That sounds like another Advent activity:) Or a Sunday gift:) You could do whatever you want!

Sarah M. said...

OH I love Costco.com too! I just finished making premium calendars for our family as gifts this year. I hope they turn out! Love the idea of the Christmas box! You always have good ideas Vicki, thanks! :)